2/8/11

Found Photos #2: Mystery Party

I have no idea of the who, when and where of these photos. but that makes these photographs all the more intriguing I guess. It looks like a great party, undoubtedly sometime in the early seventies. A lot of booze on the table, a plethora of pretty babes, and "interesting" dress abound. Let's theorize what's going on here, shall we?

I'm thinking possibly a high school Halloween party at someone's house. However, their costumes don't seem very "Halloweeny" - so, maybe it's a drama club, or actors celebrating after a theater performance. Or maybe they're workers at one of those cheesy themed restaurants where the waiters and hostesses have to dress in costume, and their having an after work drunkfest.

Some heavy duty PDA goin' on here. The fella' in the shiny vest is really making great strides in the "I'm so drunk I don't know what came over me department".

I'm noticing everyone is white. No one is even slightly dark complected, which leads me to my next theory....

I think they're European - probably German or somewhere in Scandinavia. They seem really young to be drinking legally in the U.S., and there's something about their dress, hair and makeup that makes me think "non-U.S." as well. Plus, as I said, they're all pasty white. If this was the U.S., there'd probably be some tan girls, and possibly a non Caucasian among them.

It's easily been 35 years since these pictures were taken. It's weird to think that these party-goers are now in their fifties!

What's your take on these found photos? I'd love to hear. Perhaps I'm missing something obvious. It's fun to speculate on these moments in time, long forgotten, but now resurrected.

16 comments:

It's also possible they lived in one of the US states that had a drinking age of 18 (the photos do look like they were shot in the early to mid 70s). The 21 drinking age was only put in place in 1984, essentially to force states to keep teenagers from drinking, so they could obtain highway funding from the US government.

And of course, the drinking age isn't set in stone, almost half the states in the US allow for minors to drink, provided they're essentially chaperoned by their parents.

I second the idea of a drama club party somewhere in Europe. Interesting to note that all but one bottles on the table lack labels or they just stand that way that it's impossible to tell what they are. I see a couple of presumably coca cola empty bottles, too.

I don't know...everything (to me, anyway)screams '65-'68. And given the time frame in question, the absence of...uh...'diversity' could be anyplace, really. I would'nt have thought Euro without the unfamiliar bottles on the table, though. hm. Seems like a good time had by all either way.

Peter Pan? No way would drunk highschool students with access to a hook NOT take a picture of that. Also, there are too many women, no Indians or wild boys, and the costumes seem to be 20th century adult clothes.

I agree with Robert M. Lindsey. At first I thought there were from the UK. However, there not enough hippie wannables, along with the derth mixed gender youth theater group at the time, to be British. I thinking a liberal European nation with a similar education system.

I think, it's just a private carnival party or a birthday party in the days of carnival. The horizontal striped t-shirts were often used at carnival. I don't know where, but in Western Germany beer bottles had usually an other form in these days. Maybe you can read something on the original photographies, on a bottle or the glas?

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